Mississippi Grind

Curtis (Ryan Reynolds) is a mystery, and sort of remains one right to the very end of this intriguing road-movie about two inveterate gamblers.

When we first meet this rather handsome and charismatic 30-something-year-old he turns up in a dingy casino in Dubuque, Iowa, and very noisily crashes into a poker game in full swing. At the other end of the table he spots Gerry (Ben Mendelsohn), a rather haggard-looking man in his mid-forties trying to bluff his hand as cool as he can. Curtis makes a big fuss about sending him a drink of fancy bourbon.

Apart from the fact that they both love gambling and booze and have pasts that they are not in a hurry to share, they have very little in common. Nevertheless, the two men become almost inseparable very quickly. When Gerry is not gambling he is a very reluctant real estate broker, but he has no luck with that either; we soon see him meeting up with a loan shark who is trying to get him to pay back the massive debts he has built up.

Curtis, on the other hand, is a real drifter whose entire possessions fit into one small holdall. He lives of his charm and his good looks. We are never sure why he has drifted into Iowa in the first place, but he is already keen to keep moving on. So when Gerry suggests that the two of them gamble their way along the Mississippi River and eventually go to New Orleans, where there is big poker game with a hefty $25,000 buy-in, he jumps at the chance. Gerry feels that Curtis is a actually a lucky omen; since the two met, he has actually been winning for a change.

First stop for them is St Louis, where it appears that Curtis has a sort-of girlfriend who gives the men a change of clothes and puts them up. It is she who reveals that Curtis has befriended a stranger before and partly bank-rolled their gambling habit, only then to repay him by robbing him blind, thus planting a doubt about whether this relationship, which started on nothing more than a pure whim with Gerry, will also end up badly.

What we do know about Gerry is that when he is gambling he simply never ever knows when to stop, and so when they arrive in Memphis and he plays poker without Curtis he loses all the money that they have accumulated so far, and more. This is a fact he doesn't share with Curtis, but instead he asks that they do a detour to Little Rock to see an ex-wife he suddenly reveals he has. He claims it is to try and win her back, but in reality it is to try and steal the savings he knows she keeps in the house, in order to replace the money he has lost. At this point, it seems like he really is at rock bottom.

Curtis and Gerry deceive each other at different points throughout the journey to get the upper hand, constantly changing the balance of their relationship, but even through the roughest patches there is a remarkable, genuine affection that keeps them together. Like the poker players that they are, neither men are ever easy to read. Gerry, who pointlessly listens to tapes in his car on how to stop gambling, only shows real emotion when he gets wildly excited about going "all in," and Curtis uses his affability and his eagerness to please to as concealment for his own melancholy.

One of the real joys of this engaging and compelling movie is that the story is completely unpredictable, and filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck cleverly keep us in suspense as to the ultimate outcome, engaging us right up until the last frame. They were helped by their faultless casting choices, with both Ryan Reynolds and the Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn being pitch perfect. Reynold's Curtis simply oozes charm and confidence, but he is at his best when he shows his vulnerability; Mendelsohn ensures that even when Gerry sinks as low as he can, we still empathize and never stop rooting for him.

Three standout supporting roles need mentioning, too. Alfe Woodward as the loan shark was on the screen for too brief a moment; there's a great performance from Sienna Miller as Curtis' girlfriend; and there's also a scene-stealing turn from Robin Weigart for her brief role as Gerry's ex wife.

This low-budget indie movie started its journey at Sundance as an excellent gamble. It pays off perfectly, and needs to win itself the audience it so deserves.